海角大神

The late Malian photographer Seydou Ke茂ta has been likened to a griot, a storyteller who preserves the oral history of his ancestors. But he was also a master of the moment, capturing the epoch in which Africans shed colonial rule and glimpsed their future.聽

With his emphasis on depicting Africans the way they wished to be seen, Ke茂ta showed a society emerging from European control. And when his portraits from the 1940s to the 鈥�60s eventually made their way to the West, they also challenged the stereotyped images of Africans found in magazines such as National Geographic.聽

鈥淔or the first time, [Western] audiences could experience what I鈥檒l call the African gaze, and it amounted to a visual revolution,鈥� writes Howard French, an essayist in 鈥淪eydou Ke茂ta: A Tactile Lens,鈥� a catalog that accompanies an exhibition of the same name at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.聽

Ke茂ta was 鈥渢horoughly imbued with the spirit of his time,鈥� French adds. He portrayed Africans at a turning point between their colonial past and their independent future.

His work is considered on a par with that of famous Western studio portraitists such as Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. While they had access to the latest technology in the boom years after World War II, Ke茂ta had none of those things. While Americans were buying Polaroid Land Cameras, people in colonial French West Africa did not typically see or own permanent images of themselves, let alone have the tools to take them.聽

Enter Seydou Ke茂ta. He was born in Bamako, Mali, in 1921, and, as the eldest son, became the chief breadwinner, working in his father鈥檚 trade of carpentry to support an extended family of 100 members. When Ke茂ta was age 14, his uncle gave him a Kodak Brownie Flash camera. Making pictures became his passion.聽

In 1948, Ke茂ta opened a portrait studio in the courtyard of his family compound. For the next 15 years, customers flocked to have their pictures taken. They wished to ensure their image for posterity, primping for the camera in their own finery or with props he provided such as watches, pens, radios, Western suits and ties, even a Vespa scooter.

Ke茂ta was famous for his skill with such portraits. 鈥淭he self-image fixed on paper 鈥� it started with Seydou,鈥� as Kader Ke茂ta, a family member, told exhibition curator Catherine E. McKinley. Customers came from all over West Africa, queuing up in Ke茂ta鈥檚 courtyard to choose their poses and costumes from his samples. Ke茂ta鈥檚 family members served them tea and bantered with them. It was a celebratory outing, often memorializing a wedding, engagement, or birth.

Ke茂ta photographed all day and spent time at night in a darkroom making 5-by-7 prints that the sitters collected the next day.

What鈥檚 remarkable about these portraits is that Ke茂ta, who was self-taught but a wizard when it came to lighting his subjects and arranging their poses, only clicked the shutter once 鈥� for reasons of economy. The portraits 鈥� shot outdoors in natural light since electricity was a luxury 鈥� are luminous. Skin glistens, fingernails shine.

The images were a collaboration between sitter and photographer, with Ke茂ta fluffing garments and directing poses to maximize a commanding sculptural presence. Through their bold gazes, the subjects appear to leap out at the viewer, dignified, powerful, and alive.

Handwoven textiles used as backdrops are Ke茂ta鈥檚 signature and recall African visual culture. (Ke茂ta鈥檚 younger brothers were in charge of holding up the fabrics, including Ke茂ta鈥檚 own fringed bedspread.) The patterned textiles add dynamism, density, and detail. (The use of patterned backdrops reappears in contemporary art, such as in Mickalene Thomas鈥� paintings and Kehinde Wiley鈥檚 portrait of President Barack Obama.)

A print of a woman in recumbent pose shows how Ke茂ta actively staged his images to create an elegant aura. The woman reclines on a checkerboard fabric wearing a flowered gown and polka-dotted headscarf. Arabesques of a fabric backdrop surround her.聽

Despite Ke茂ta鈥檚 status as a celebrated 20th-century African master, his discovery by the Western art world was almost by happenstance. Two of his portraits (attributed anonymously) caused a sensation in a 1991 group show of African art in New York. Collector Jean Pigozzi tracked down their Malian creator, who was then working as an auto mechanic.

Malian government officials forced Ke茂ta to close his studio in 1963 and work for the state until he quit in 1977. After his 鈥渞ediscovery,鈥� collectors and museums printed his negatives using the latest technology. Seeing his negatives transformed into large formats and framed for the first time, he was thrilled. 鈥淚 knew then that my work was really, really good,鈥� he said shortly before his death in 2001. 鈥淭he people in my photos looked so alive, almost as if they were standing right in front of me.鈥�

Ke茂ta鈥檚 images reflect both his clients鈥� aspirations toward a modern, urban identity and their reverence for still-potent cultural traditions. This extensive catalog shows, through the eyes of a premiere portrait photographer, a society in transition.

The exhibition 鈥�Seydou Ke茂ta: A Tactile Lens鈥� is on display聽at the Brooklyn Museum until May 17. Nine photographs by聽Ke茂ta are also on view at New York鈥檚 Museum of Modern Art聽in a group show, 鈥淚deas of Africa: Portraiture and Political聽Imagination,鈥� through July 25.